Monday, November 21, 2011

Pappy Van Winkle: Know Your Bottle Codes

It's Pappy time! That crazy time every fall when the Pappy Van Winkle's get released. Pappy Van Winkle, of course, is one of the most prized regular releases for bourbon lovers. The Van Winkle family, of the late Stitzel-Weller distillery, are known to have a diminishing number of barrels of that prized Stitzel-Weller bourbon. Along with those barrels, they also bottle whiskey made at Buffalo Trace (and their rye comes from a variety of sources).

Of late, there has been much controversy about which bottles of Pappy are Stitzel-Weller and which are Buffalo Trace. There doesn't seem to be much doubt that the 20 and 23 year old Pappys are still made from Stitzel-Weller bourbon, but there has been a lot of back and forth about the 15.

Pappy 15 is the most affordable and some think the best of the Pappy line (which also makes it the hardest to get). Based on statements made by the Van Winkles a few years ago, it sounds as if they made a big (and possibly final) run of Pappy 15 bottles from Stitzel Weller in 2009 that held them through the spring 2011 release. This fall, according to this K&L interview with Preston Van Winkle, the Pappy 15 is bourbon made at Buffalo Trace.

But suppose you happen to find a bottle of Pappy on a dusty shelf somewhere. How will you know whether it is the old Stitzel Weller or the new Buffalo Trace version? The answer is in the bottle code. If you have ever visited Tim Puett's Ardbeg Project site, you know about bottle codes. They are codes placed on each bottle that show the time and date of the bottling and they can help you distinguish between different releases of the same whiskey. Tim has demonstrated huge differences in, for instance, the Ardbeg 10 over the years, but you can't tell when the whiskey is from without knowing the bottle code.

Buffalo Trace uses a similar code which can tell you the year your Van Winkle (or your Stagg, Weller, etc.) was bottled. The code is a very small digital stamp that appears on the bottle, usually below the back label. Here's how to read it using two examples:

Example 1: K0780907:21

Example 2: N3001114:13

The first letter is the bottling line at Buffalo Trace; example 1 was the K line, and example 2 was the N line. I don't know enough about the bottling there to know if there is any real significance that can be gleaned from the bottling line.

The second three digits indicate the day of the year that it was bottled. So example 1 was bottled on the 78th day of the year and example 2 was bottled on the 300th day of the year.

The third two digits indicate the year - this is really the most significant piece of information. The "09" on example 1 indicates it was bottled in 2009, so if it's Pappy 15, it would likely be from the old Stitzel-Weller stocks. Example 2 has an "11" which indicates 2011 when they started using Buffalo Trace bourbon.

The final four digits are the bottling time on a 24 hour clock, so example 1 was bottled at 7:21 am and example 2 was bottled at 2:13 pm (14:13).

If you love your Pappy and your BTAC and especially if you go dusty hunting for older versions, it pays to know your bottle codes.

UPDATE (March 2012)

For the Spring 2012 release, it appears that the order of numbers has switched. In the comments below, a reader gave this example of a bottle code: b1204011:11k.

I would interpret it this way.

The first letter indicates it was bottled at Buffalo Trace. The first two digits are the year, so "12" means bottled in 2012. The second three digits are the day of the year, so "025" means the whiskey was bottled on the 25th day of the year, which would be January 25th. This would be consistent for the spring 2012 release. The last four digits are the time of bottling, in this case, 11:11. The last letter is the bottling line.

UPDATE 2

Bottle codes did not start appearing on bottles until 2007. For hints on dating a pre-bottle code Van Winkle, see my Pappy Van Winkle Timeline.

In Lexington, Kentucky, at least, the Van Winkle line is not so much a brand as it is an aspiration. Near as I can tell, bottles here never made it to store shelves this fall, not even the entry level 10 year old. Since 10 year old bourbon cannot be terribly scarce, the apparent Van Winkle business plan to severely restrict availability seems a bit counterproductive. How will the firm win new customers if folks can only rarely get the product? A better plan, I suspect, would be to keep the 10 year old Van Winkle in common circulation and reserve the older bourbons for strict allocation. Of course, it's their company not mine. They have spent several decades successfully building up the brand, so they obviously know something about marketing (and bourbon).

Steve - good post. There's been discussion of this very thing; e.g. SW or not SW. To me, if it's good, who cares but I understand some do. I have PVW15 from 2006 in my bunker but for the life of me can't find the bottling code. It might be under the label. As for finding a "dusty" PVW15.....when monkeys fly.

I just got a bottle of 15 and 20 year old today from the fall 2011 allocation. Both were bottled about 3 weeks apart from eachother this year.

With all this talk of S/W vs. BT juice, I'm sure that the 15 is new BT spirit... but how sure can I be that they haven't used BT 1991 juice in the Fall 2011 release? I got it because I was sure it was still S/W :)

Thanks for this post. It's fun for us bourbon dorks (to use Greg's blog name haha). I just got up to Boston where my Dad proudly announced that he'd scored an "old" bottle of 15. This I highly doubted and in the spirit my pops and I have of loving to challenge each other's bold claims, I hit your blog to help prove him wrong. I found the digital stamp (located just under the bottom right corner of the back label - needed to tilt the bottle and hit it with a flashlight to make it out) and found that his bottle was bottled this year in October (298th day). The odd thing was that it was bottled at 8:28pm. I guess during Pappy season they burn the midnight oil at BT.

Thanks for aiding me in victory. Next up I will just have to shame the old man into letting me crack the bottle and have at it!

I finally opened up the fall 2011 release today... am I alone in being very unimpressed with this? It's rather one-dimensional and lacks something in the mid-palate. It tastes like an above average cognac.

I am hoping the 20 is a whole lot better! I may just put it on ebay since I only paid $90 for it though :)

Anon, if you'd tasted the 2011 Pappy 15 in a blind vertical with Pappy 15 from 2007-2010 releases; then yes, you are alone. And as your glowing praise for Saz 18 indicates your taste buds prefer spicier rye whiskies to silkier wheated bourbons, you could have saved a bundle discovering your preference for rye-based flavors by trying entry-level whiskies before purchasing two of the finest and rarest on Earth.

I just bought 2 bottles of PPW 15 and on inspection of the bottle codes realized I have one 2009 and one 2011. I am very excited to have an older one, but I am not yet convinced that the 2009 is truly Stitzel-Weller product. The math just doesn't work out for me. Here's my blog post anyways:http://bkarmstrong.blogspot.com/2011/11/pappy-van-winkle-bourbon.html

I just picked up 2 PVW 23 and was surpised to find that - according to the code information above - they are years 06 and 08 respectively. I am confused as to these older dates as this is my local shop and these just arrived in the shop within the last week. It seemed unusual that they would receive these older bottling from their distributer.. rather than the 2011 versions. Is this unusual in your experience?

Talk about lightning striking - I went into my local liquor store tonight to get a bottle of Elijah Craig and what do see on the bourbon shelf (at eye level, no less) than ONE beautiful bottle of Pappy 15!! (I triple-checked, there was only the one)...I live in a rural "control" state that gets NO good bourbon, or much of anything else for that matter, and this store is literally the only one within an hour's drive. They also normally have a very limited bourbon selection. Needless to say, I almost s*** my pants!!

-According to your info on the new bottling codes, SKU, mine was bottled on August 28, 2012 at 8:04 p.m., therefore it's BT juice, but hey, given where I live it's about a once-in-every-five+-years find and definitely has made my Saturday night!

Very interesting article. I just snagged a bottle of 23, which arrived at my local store yesterday. Unfortunately the codes don't match what you have here....unless the 2 and 1 are transposed? The 308th day would make sense though. Here it is: K2130811:28

Hi, sku -this is edo in Japan. I just bought (ordered Dec. 21, 2012) a bottle of PVW 15 y.o. from Kawachiya online. One per customer and they couldn't have had it up much more than a day. It's in a 70 cl bottle and the number on the back label is:

06.6071 (that's it- no letters or anything else.)Now, oddly, on the front label, very bottom left is the number:

04.6071 Only the second digit is different. Got any ideas about that?

... and I was able to get two bottles of Lot B. Again, 70 cl.(export?) size. There is no back label except a Japanese sticker, but on both bottles the front label bottom right has this number: 04.6081.01

Sorry Edo, I have no clue what that would be. Did you look closely for other codes? Usually the code is in a small black computer printed numbers below the back label. It can be very difficult to see when the bottle is full. I'm wondering if the code you found is an additional code used for exports.

Of course, given that they have to use a completely different bottling size, it's possible that there is a different code for export bottlings.

I have a bottle I picked up somewhere between 2002 and 2006. I cannot locate the bottling code for the life of me (I even tried the flashlight trick) but it has the same label codes that Edo mentioned. How big is the bottling code?

The bottle code is usually somewhere under the back label. It is quite small, maybe 8 point or so and in black type which makes it very hard to see in a full bottle. I'm not sure when they started using it, so if it's an early bottling, it's possible it was before they were using it.

Josh, no. Understandably, they ran out of the 15 first. Sometime last year, the 20 year old became a blend of Stitzel-Weller and BT (and probably Bernheim too). The 23 is still all Stitzel-Weller but all of it is bottled and they will keep releasing it. When those bottles dry up, they will move to a mixture as well, but no one knows when that will be.

I just bought a 20 yr Pappy from a local liquor store and have been trying to find the laser codes to get information on when it bottled. I can't find it anywhere. I've used the flashlight method and also looked under the labels with no luck. I've checked other bottles and haven't had a problem find these codes before. Is there a chances they don't code all bottles or it could've been skipped? Thanks.

I just found a bottle of 20yr PVW with the code L07300445 in a little liquor shop off the beaten path. Of course I bought it immediately. Can anyone confirm that the label states it is from year 2000? I just want to make sure I am not crazy..I have not seen anyone with a "L" as the first letter, I have only heard of B and N..

I just traded for a bottle of the 12 year lot B. I was a bit hesitant at first. To put my mind at ease I was hoping someone would be able to tell me how I can figure out if the bottle I got is a real or fake. Great appreciated.

Anonymous. Yes, it's possible there is SW in it, though if there is, it's probably blended with Bernheim. It's also possible that it's 100% Bernheim. Sorry for the lack of clarity, but I doubt you're going to get a better answer than that from anyone.

So my family has had several bottles of PVW 23yr from the first or second releases and I left some some with my mom and dad 5 years back. Last week I had only two left and and found out my parents never drank them ! So now I literally have 5 dusty bottles of PVW 23yr with gold wax.

My questions is: how do you read the bar codes on the older labels?and did subsequent releases continue the bottle numbering or did they start over each time? Because I have some that are numbered between 1-100

If you mean the hand written code on the label, I don't think there is a reliable way to decipher that. However, if the bottle's glass is green, it's from the first release of Pappy 23. If the glass is clear, it's from the second release (or later).

Hello Sku, Great thread! On 2/26/12, I bought two bottles of 20 yr Pappy Van Winkle from the same store. The first one had bottle code (K0210809:23). It was very difficult to find but was behind the front label and I had to read it backwards from the back of the bottle. The code on the second bottle was under the back label (J1470911:54). Since I bought them in winter 2012, they must have been from the store's fall 2011 distribution.

My question is, does it make sense that they were bottled in 2008 and 2009 when I bought them in 2012?

C, sometimes the Van Winkles do a big bottling that they use for several years so it is possible. For instance, the 2009 bottling of Pappy 15, as noted above, was around for at least three releases. The other option is that the distributor held some back or somehow got some from another distribution.

I found a small screw top Pappy glass container. It has a white label that cannot read. On bottom is 54j8 and a mark under the j. The word Pappy is diagonal With the P being lowest and the Y being the highest. Can you identify please. Thank you.

Sku,I recently had the good fortune of acquiring a bottle of Pappy 20-year old. The bottling code is K2631117:58. From my reading of past posts here and other blogs, I surmise that this is one of the last SW only juice bottles bottled, since BT started blending SW with BT in 2012 (for the 20-yr expression). Am I totally off base here. Is there way more history that I can learn?

Hi Don, your bottling code indicates that that Pappy 20 was bottled in the fall of 2011. We only know details about content from what's come out of the mouths of the Van Winkles, but based on my 2012 interview with Preston Van Winkle, it would appear that you are correct that it one of the last 100% Stitzel-Weller bottlings of the 20 year old.

Thank you so much for this post! I know almost nothing about bourbon, but my hubby drinks bourbon exclusively, and has gathered quite a collection over the years. For Xmas I wanted to get him something very, very special. We live in LA, but it was impossible to find the selection of PVW I wanted at a local store. From an on-line vendor I purchased three bottles: 15, 20 & 23 yr old PVW. I wanted all 3 to be S-W bottling so I purchased 08 or 09 bottles at a very high price. I think the bottle codes confirm I received the correct bottles:PVW 15 (2009): K0790909:08PVW 20 (2009): J147090738PVW 23 (2008 D): K2060812:27

Please let me know if these codes verify I have 3 really good bottles of Pappys for him.Thanks in advance!Carol C.

I have a bottle of 20yr Family Reserve Limited Edition. Unopened. It has no code, clear glass and the Lawrenceburg address. From what I can piece together it was likely bottled between 1999 and 2002. Is this a valuable bottle?

I have a bottle of van winkle special reserve 12 yr lot b. The code on the bottle does not make sense or at least I'm thinking too hard. The code is B1514809:244I don't understand the last 4 does anyone know about this?

When you don't see a laser code there are three options: (1) the bottle is from before 2007, when they started using the code; (2) you haven't found the code - they can be hard to see and sometimes hide under the back label; (3) someone scrubbed the code - a little Windex is all it takes.

I have a question about the raised lettering on the Pappy Van Winkle labels for the bottles. My question is it possible for a Pappy Van Winkle to have been from 2002-2006, but not have raised lettering?

I ask because I know someone in a possession of a 20 year old bottle that actually is taller and the top opening does not have ridging. We e-mailed a man that has written books about Pappy & he says not to worry about it because during the early 2000s, they would use whatever bottles they had. (we actually found someone else who had a bottle similar as well on Facebook). My point is, you would question its authenticity if you just saw it because it appears to be an odd ball.

So, we are in possession of 3 bottles (not all tall), but they do not have raised lettering or bar codes. My father bought these I know pre-2010 (I do not know exact years), but it was when he could still find Pappy on the shelves in stores. He just quit buying because he refused to pay when it went up in price, compared to what he had been previously paying, & he switched to Weller 12 year (haha also when you could buy CASES & find it in stores). So, I am saying I know my father did not use windex on the bar codes (& he did not buy them from a third party...he bought them from the liquor store), & it seems crazy all the bar codes would have rubbed off all the bottles. However, the label lacks the raised lettering. Is it possible the raised lettering was not on all the 2002-2006 era 20 year Pappy Van Winkle?

Hello. I have a found a bottle that I am thinking about purchasing but I am not 100% sure if it in authentic. For a 2016 Pappy 20 year, the serial code that they have in the image is B160760732M. Many of you have listed : in your codes for the time. This one appears to be missing the colan. I'm guessing this is a red flag that this is fake but wanted to make sure.